


Three-Day Weekend

by staranise



Series: Gone for a Soldier [6]
Category: Clan Mitchell - Fandom, Stargate SG-1
Genre: Brothers, Gen, Military, home front
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2008-08-23
Updated: 2008-08-23
Packaged: 2017-10-20 07:15:01
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,034
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/210125
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/staranise/pseuds/staranise
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>It's a little harder to come to his brother's rescue when Skipper is in another goddamn galaxy.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Three-Day Weekend

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Take These Broken Wings](https://archiveofourown.org/external_works/3531) by Synecdochic. 



**Friday, December 21, 2007**

It didn't look like he'd fucked this batch up quite as badly. Spencer eased the pan out of the oven and swore a little when he burned his thumb on it, then set it on the wire rack so he could suck at his thumb and curse fate a little.

He was _supposed_ to be done this by now, asleep and in bed. He had two bags packed and in the hallway--one for his clothes, and one for their presents to everybody--and the rest of this parcel was done, but he'd fucking burned the shortbread so now he was up past midnight making a second batch, and Skipper was always fucking better at this recipe than him.

He hated Christmas. Love and joy and peace on earth, but he'd grown up in a family where Christmas always had the phonecalls from people far away and missing home, had an empty plate squeezed in at the end of the table when his momma set it, and the toast to absent friends that wasn't just an empty gesture. He hated being reminded of who was lost and who was gone, and missing his brother was like a splinter under his skin. At the very least, he just wanted to call the man up and hear him talk for an hour or two.

Instead he carefully loaded up a teaspoon with sugar and shook it out over the shortbread, then sliced it up into rectangles.

In the morning the shortbread was packaged up with the rest of Skipper's Christmas parcel: books, pictures, presents from home, a letter from Spencer that went on for pages but didn't once say _I love you_ because it never needed saying. The airman in Spencer's housing complex picked it up and took it down to the Mountain for him, while Spencer drove to Denver to catch a plane home for Christmas. As he was flying, the shortbread demolecularized, then reappeared on the far side of a wormhole. In another galaxy, Skipper left a small sacrificial offering of shortbread on his CO's desk, then kept the rest in his quarters for himself.

  
 **Saturday, May 3, 2008**

All the word that Spencer ever gave him was a memo in his bank account. He still paid half-rent on their duplex, since he had nothing _else_ to do with the money, even if he didn't get a housing allowance; this month the _entire_ rent went out, and when he tracked down the change to the electronically-generated bill payment he found the comment _send paddle_.

"I already _knew_ that," he said to his computer. Spencer wasn't up Shit Creek, he'd crossed the Shit Ocean to go live in Shitland with the Shitlandians and their herds of shit-sheep and Skipper didn't even know fucking _why_. The only grace that'd kept him _out_ of this entire fucking mess was being on Atlantis and out of reach. It still took extra time, every databurst, to steel himself to mark everything from his family read and move it out of his inbox, until the connection was closed and he could read them without the need to reply as fast and furious as he could.

Hold your peace, hold fast, hold on. All he could do.

  
 **Sunday, June 29, 2008**

When Skipper got back (to his _home galaxy;_ greetings, Earthlings) he knew he was doing the first leg solo. Forewarned, he just made his way to Sergeant Hastings and picked up his shit: wallet, keychain, jeans, Hurricanes shirt, shoes. Everything a growing boy needed. His car was there, taken out of garage and left in day parking, and he felt his brother's ghost (no, his brother's _invisible presence_ ; Spencer's ghost was right where it _ought_ to be, thank God) trailing him the entire way, little clues left for him to follow, little things left as a silent reminder. _Still here_.

He took an extra lap around parking just to remind himself what it felt like to drive (would have preferred not to have to, but when the email asked _do you need me to pick you up?_ it was pretty clear that Spencer preferred not to have to either, and it was really only a small nuisance).

Much as he wanted to speed, he didn't; no use being stupid. Colorado was pretty much the way he'd left it: plains and poplars, the ghost of mountains on one horizon, cars and people and dogs, shouting children, and he had to stop looking at flickers of movement in the corner of his eye and pay attention to who had right-of-way at the intersections.

Of course, Spencer was parked in their unit's space, so Skipper had to take guest parking; he jogged the entire way back to their townhouse door, took the stairs in two strides, and had to let himself in the door with his keys.

He didn't know what he was expecting, not with tidings such as these; had nightmares of Spencer a drunken wreck or something. But when he pushed the door open he _blinked_ because Spence wasn't necessarily a clean freak even when he _wasn't_ coming down off a bender but what he saw (bootrack, hallway, through to the living room) was fucking white glove inspection _meticulous_. As he stepped through the door, kitchen-smells hit him: bread and soup, both fresh and rich and as good as he'd dreamed about when he was away. Skipper closed the front door just when Spencer came out of the kitchen; one step on either side and then they collided with enough force that it made them both rock a little, in a hug as sure and firm and necessary as anything he'd ever felt.

"Hey," Spence said, crushed up against him, and oh, it was so good to hear him.

"Hey, you," Skipper said back, thumped his brother's back a little. "You want to explain what the fuck _happened?"_

Spencer made an exhalation that was a laugh, the kind of laugh that might also be a swear, that meant he didn't have any other response to the things that were riding him. "Yeah," he said, his voice _oh god and isn't it a fucking story._ "Yeah. I do."


End file.
